This week Purnima Bose discusses how Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates how easily modern America might become a truly repressive theocracy. The extended cut includes a review of the plot of the novel as well as a discussion of the cultural milieu in which Atwood composed the narrative. There is also a brief discussion of how the movie adaptation with Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn and Robert Duvall alters the book’s ending.

America is a land founded on commercial ventures intended to gather in the riches of a virgin land but also upon the Puritan plan to set up a theocratic state. In this episode of The Custom House Purnima Bose, a professor in the International Studies Department of Indiana University, discusses how Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates how easily modern America can become a truly repressive theocracy.